Time Riders

CHAPTER 44

1956, outside Washington DC

Liam looked out of the back of the truck as it rumbled noisily along a road awayfrom DC lined with German troops on patrol, civilian refugees herded at gunpoint and pitifullines of beaten American soldiers in their khaki greens, many of them wounded.

‘I’m Wallace, by the way,’ said the man in the suit. ‘Daniel Wallace.I work in the White House press corps. Well,’ he sighed wearily, ‘at least Idid.’

Liam held out a limp hand. He wasn’t sure what ‘press corps’ did, but heguessed it was to do with newspapers. ‘Liam O’Connor, from Cork,Ireland.’

Wallace nodded. ‘You’re a long way from home, son.’

‘Tell me about it,’ he replied with a lacklustre smile.

Wallace spoke quietly. ‘I’m still puzzled about you and your friend. You said youwere…’ Wallace looked around at the other prisoners; many of them were either inshock, or had retired into themselves, shutting out this grim reality.

‘Look, why don’t we forget what I said?’ Liam replied. ‘It’snot like it matters now, does it? I’m right here in the same boat as everyoneelse.’

‘What about the man you were with?’

‘What about him?’

‘I… I swear I saw him take gunshot wounds that… that he shouldn’thave survived.’

Liam said nothing and Wallace let it go for now, turning to listen to acouple of other prisoners in the back of the truck talking quietly, a silver-haired armycolonel and a naval officer.

‘… were all strung out, shell-shocked. I can’t believe two months agothe big story was Eisenhower meeting Kramer on neutral ground to discuss peace — an endto the growing tension between us and them.’

‘And all the while,’ cut in the navy officer, ‘Kramer was putting the finalpreparations together for his invasion of America.’ The colonel ran a hand over hisbuzz-cut hair. ‘We never even saw it coming, Bill… We were just kidding ourselvesthat they wanted peace and would leave us alone.’

Liam gazed out of the back of the truck, his mind a million miles away.

My first trip… and it’s already over for me.

The last few weeks of his life felt like a crazy dream. A little over three weeks ago,he’d been a junior steward on the Titanic, tending to rich,pampered passengers, looking forward to arriving in the land of opportunity, America. The planhad been to quit his job the moment the ship docked and begin a new life of adventure anddiscovery. He’d read so much about America and knew this was the place for him, thecountry in which he would make his fortune.

Then a chunk of bloody ice at sea had changed everything.

And with it came Foster… saving him from the sort of death he’d always hadnightmares about — drowning. The old man had opened an incredible door for him. Astunning world of the future, a world of chrome and glass buildings, of neon lights andflashing screens of colour, of excitement, of movement, of technology that seemed out of thisworld. But also a world of the past, of any time he wished, for Foster assured him he wouldsee so many wonderful things, wonderful moments, that in a way… no,definitely… he was the luckiest young man alive.

Now here he was. Stuck. What he faced now along with everyone else in this truck was afrightening and uncertain future. They were going to be shot and, if not, then most probablyput to work as prisoners of war.

Some small voice inside tried to reassure him that at least he was alive instead of crushedand rotting fish-food at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. It did little to cheer him. He wasstuck here. There was no way for him to return to that third and final extraction window. And,without any way at all to communicate with Foster, Maddy and Sal… that was it forhim.

Might as well forget those names, he told himself. I’m never going to see them again.

The truck rattled past a picket fence plastered with photographs of all shapes and sizes, thesmiling faces of those missing printed on Have you seen them?posters placed by worried husbands and wives, mothers and fathers. Along the bottom of thefence were piled posies of flowers, fresh and old, crosses, mementoes, teddy bears and dolls.It was a shrine to those who had vanished amid the whirlwind carnage of recent weeks.

Several of the other people in the back of the truck watched the fence pass by, a painfullyendless display of hope and sadness. A woman opposite him sobbed at the sight of it.

So many dead and missing.

A soldier in the truck ground his teeth. ‘Never even stood a goddamn chance’gainst them Nazis.’

Perhaps the only comfort, Liam considered, was that the war had been so short, that it wasalready over.